基于财务报告的内部控制缺陷披露影响因素研究

Determinants of the Discovery and Reporting of Internal Control Deficiencies over Financial Reporting

本文以2008年深市494家披露内部控制自我评价报告的公司为研究样本,构建了一个关于内部控制缺陷披露的概念模型,使用Logit回归分析验证内部控制缺陷披露的影响因素。研究发现,存在内部控制缺陷的公司一般经营更加复杂,存在的会计风险更高,内部控制建设相对更不完善;经历审计师变更和财务报告重述的公司更可能披露内部控制缺陷。另外,聘请的审计师质量越高,披露内部控制缺陷的可能性越小。

We use internal control deficiency （ICD） disclosed in the annual report of the managers＇ assessment about the efficiency of their internal control to investigate economic factors that expose firms to control failures and managements＇ incentives to discover and report internal control deficiencies. 494 listed companies of Shenzhen stock exchanges in 2008 were selected as the sample of this study. We build a conceptual model of the disclosure of internal control deficiencies. The Logistic regression technique is implemented to analysis the determinants of the disclosure of internal control deficiencies over financial reporting. We analyze the internal control deficiencies on the internal control risk factors and incentives of managers and auditors to discoer and disclose internal control deficiencies. Our internal control risk factors include the complexity and scope of firms＇ operation, changes in firms＇ organizational structure, accounting measurement application risk, lack of firm resources to devote to internal control and whether the auditor resign in 2008. We use auditor dominance, sensitivity to regulatory intervention in financial reporting due to prior restatement to proxy for incentives to discover and disclose internal control deficiencies. According to the results, we find that, relative to control sample, firms of internal control deficiencies have more complex operations as proxied by the number of business segments and foreign sales, and more often engage in acquisitions and restructurings. The results also indicate that internal control deficiency disclosers face greater accounting procedure application risk as firms with greater sales growth and levels of inventory are more likely to report an internal control deficiency. We find that smaller firms, firms reporting a higher frequency of losses and firms in financial distress are more likely to disclose internal control deficiencies. A highly significant risk factor that explains the incidence of an internal control deficiency is the auditor resigning in the year prior to the internal control deficiency disclosure. But our results indicate that the auditor quality is negatively correlated with the disclosure of internal control deficiencies.